A mercenary blog

March 2, 2014

As I began working on this series more and more, I realized that I was going to need to get the entire story. While I may consider high sec mercenaries to be fake mercenaries, their opinions and experiences were vital in understanding the whole story. So I reached out to a bunch of the high sec merc leaders the same way I did with the others: I sent an EVEmail asking about contract numbers and types and requested an interview.

Unsurprisingly, none of the people I contacted could give me numbers, just vague responses: "A lot," one replied. I was surprised to find out why they couldn't give me hard data though. Unlike mercs in every other type of space, it turns out high sec mercs haven't really been effected like the rest of us have, at least not when it comes to the number of contracts they get. The reason I couldn't get an exact answer was because there are so many contracts taking place each week that they simply can't keep track. However, one thing that seems to stay constant no matter where you're a mercenary is that structure focused contracts are on the rise, especially with the release of high security POCOs. I should also point out that after speaking with these guys, I found that I had quite a few preconceptions that simply aren't true. So, here's an official apology to all of you high sec mercenaries who do real work!

Without much further ado, I'll let you guys listen. I'm going to try and wrap this series up here soon with one last post, probably pretty lengthy, about what I've learned, what I see as issues facing the merc community, and a few ideas I have for the future. Thank you for being part of the ride.

3 comments:

I started out in eve as most people do PVE/Indy ect about 7 years ago and for the first couple of years remained in a small to medium Hi sec PVE/indy corp. During that time we had our fair share of incoming war decs, the first one I can remember feeling this sucks, can't do much but that soon changed. Luckily we had a great CEO who had PVP and FC experience who got us organized and took the fight to the aggressor. I soon found myself logging in and crossing my fingers hoping that there was a mail saying we had been wardec'd. My point is don't be discouraged when your a new player by being Dec'd, fight back you might like it. If your CEO is one that tells you all to turtle up then get some pressure on them to at least try to get something going to teach you to protect yourself and your corpies, work as a team in a fleet and potentially have more fun playing the game.

This is very true. EVE is a game that doesn't take it easy on you, no matter who you are. Sometimes new players suffer for that, but those that survive the hard lessons come out much tougher in the end.

When CCP announced highsec POCOs some of us had hoped this would incentivise people to fight over highsec territory, to own a system in a sort of highsec capture the flag where people can show what systems are their area of operation. In the end I think several factors stopped this from happening mainly the Cost of replacing POCOS over and over again puts a big price tag on claiming system and perhaps second the sheer amount of POCOs in some systems coupled with the structure grind.

In regards to the biggest difficulties for Highsec mercenaries I would say people dodging wars instantly by dropping to NPC corp switching corp or closing corps is the most frustrating issue. So do you stop them from dropping or incentivise them to stay or a mixture? Defenders need an incentive to fight and undock perhaps a loyalty points system based on kills/losses against aggressor spendable in LP store?

CCP seem to blur the lines or confusing bounty hunters and mercenaries. The Bounty system has no use outside of informing you by notification when are target is killed. A mercenary system would be better.

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